Pretty much my daily life

I feel like I have been sick for the past week. Every day I am exhausted and my eyes burn, .No matter what I do it doesn't go away. It's funny because I go to bed at 9 wake up at 7, eat more than I should and I take a vitamin every morning. So no matter what I do, I am constantly tired. Maybe it's because I am finally living the life of an Italian. They never sleep! The stores open at 10 in the morning, close for lunch and then open up again around midnight. It seems like no one ever cares about getting sleep for the next day. Their lives are always busy.

This week I watched Sabrina on television. It's not that funny when you can't understand what they are saying. I also watched an Italian soap Opera with Peirina. I was going to get up from the table and get ready for bed, but she told me to sit and watch until 9. She constantly has the TV on and every time I see her, she is watching it. It's either on the news, a soap opera or Sabrina. She likes to watch the news a lot, and from what I can tell the President isn't doing Italy a lot of good. Not a lot of people like him, and I guess he is making choices people don't approve of. I got to visit the Presidents Palace in Rome and it is huge! They have multiple guards carrying these huge guns in front of the building. It was pretty intense.

So about the food I have been having here....It's pretty good. Italians make a big deal out of their food and it's because food is their life! Every meal is an event and if you miss it, it is a big deal. They take around 4 hours to sit and have a meal and even close shops just for lunch. They have two dishes and a dessert, so there is a lot of food. I havn't had anything too weird, except for some of the meats I have been having. I never know what I am eating cuz I can't understand what they say. I just eat it. I ate bone marrow last night for dinner and it was so gross. I had to tell her I wasn't feeling good so that she wouldn't feed me any more. I also have apparently had rabbit a couple of times and I actually like it. I found a hamburger shop down the street that I want so bad, but the burgers are 7 euro! Their is also a mexican shop that apparently is so gross,but I don't care. I'm going there tomorrow for lunch.

So in the Dante Alligheri school the doors randomly open and then slam shut during the day. There are no windows for wind to pass through, so it is a little weird. I learned today that this school used to be a school for the deaf. They would live and sleep here while going to school. So apparently they roam around during the day and open and shut the doors. Pretty creepy.

Anyways, time to go back to homework! Ciao

Shopping...

So I went shopping one day and was bored so took pictures of all the clothes I tried on. They were all too expensive, but one day I will own one of them!

I had this outfit on for maybe...10 minutes trying to decide if it was worth buying. Don't worry mom and dad, I didn't buy anything.

This was like a 1000 euro outfit. I felt very facy.
This is at Scout. A store where either boys or girls can wear their clothes. They don't
have a girls or a boys section. Kind of weird, but hey, its cute stuff.This is at United Colors of Bettiton. My favorite..store...ever. I go here almost once a week

This.... To be honest I have no idea what it is. But i tried it on. It's at OVS. the "american store"

Livin' the Fancy Life

The past couple of days have been pretty much normal. I am down in school mode and actually enjoy doing most of my homework. I get my assignments done way before they are due and hopefully I'll be getting grades that I want to have. The only class that is causing me a lot of trouble right now is Italian 101. I can not understand a word he is saying! He goes on and on in Italian, stops. and then points at me. So I just respond with "Non Lo So" and he just goes on again. Italian is such a hard language, and its gonna take me a long time to get used to it.

But I'm pretty much getting comfortable here and I am enjoying having this be my "temporary home". I have memorized where all of my favorite gelato shops are, my favorite shops and where all the good food is at. Pretty much 5 out of the 7 days of the week, I get gelato. I

pretty much put gelato on the same list as sin. You know you shouldn't do it, and you know you will regret it later, but you still do it. My favorite flavor that I get every time is Straccatella which is creme with chocolate chips, and Pistachio. They give you so much of it and every time I finish, I feel like I need to walk up and down the streets to feel better. But I always know the next day I'm going back for more. It's a bad habit, and It's gonna be hard to come back to old american icecream.

So I pretty much just go everywhere on my own. A lot of the girls go to parties and I am just too lame to do that, so I just go into fancy shops and pretend like I can afford the stuff they are selling. There is this fur coat I walk by every single day that calls my name. It's only 450 Euro and it is so tempting. It's so fun to pick out expensive clothes and just try them on. It's pretty much what I do if i'm not doing homework or not eating gelato. While I am window shopping, I usually stop at the Irish pub to get some free wifi. It stinks so bad in there, but apparently everyone in there knows me now. Last time I was in me and the owner got to know eachother, and they are nice. So don't worry Mom and Dad, I don't kiss any boys, but I make friends with drunk people.

I wish I could share some cool information, or something I have learned, but so far not yet. :) It's just school, school, school for right now, and then this weekend we are going on some trips so that should be a lot of fun. Attached are pictures of my gelato, and the Duomo. The Duomo is the famous Siena Church that was built to compete against the one in Florence. It is the one with zebra stripes and zombie priests inside. I want to go back in so bad.

Oh here is a fun story. Yesterday I was at the bar on the computer and I forgot what time it was and realized I was going to be late for dinner. (Pierina doesn't like when we are late). So I run to the bus station and wait for my bus to arrive and it never did. I was waiting in the dark for a half in hour while this guy started asking me questions and talking to me. After a long time my bus showed up and then the bus ride was an extra 15 minutes. When I got online, my roommate had posted a search party for me on facebook. It was pretty funny....Other than that, life is good!

It's Picture Time!

This is Peirina. My host mom...or grandma. She is making pizza in this picture and was not happy that I was taking pictures of her.
This is her apartment, and where I am staying. The street is Via Columbini and we are in apartment 20This is the Compo. It is huge..but you can't really tell
The Church Tower and the Compo
This is the bus I ride every day to school. Ugh..Via Columbini to Piazza Grumschi
This is the kitchen at my host family house. It is so tiny!
This is my bedroom ( I get my own) and it looks messy, but it isnt

Well I love everyone and I miss everyone! I weighed myself today and realized that its time to start a jog routine. Hopefully that goal will last longer than a week. I love everyone and I miss everyone!

I love Polo

I have officially been in Siena for an entire week, and It feels like I have been here for a month. It's a smaller town and it is so beautiful. I absolutely love the area. I'm going to miss all the greens, the screaming Italians and just the feel of the city. It's very different from any other area in Italy and has the perfect Tuscany feel to it.

The people of Siena pretty much live in what they call the Compo. It is a huge circle next to a bell tower that is dedicated to eat and to talk. It is so big and it is so pretty. It is always packed with people sleeping, eating lunch or smoking with their friends. It is also where everything pretty much happens in the City. When they have polo tournaments here, they fill the sloped area with dirt. I have not seen it but I have heard it is really cool. Talking about Polo....let me tell you about my new found love for the sport, or shall I say the players.

Yesterday a couple of us girls decided to go chill in the Compo before we had to go to our Host families to have dinner. We weren't there for too long before a marching band started to come down the side of the Compo a long with salsa dancers that started to perform. We thought a parade was going on, so we ran down the compo to the side of the street to watch. When we got there we realized it was actually a celebration to introduce who will be playing in the World Championships for Polo. They had Argentina, Italy, France, United Kingdom, Hungary and Germany. We watched all the boys come down on their horses and all of us just started staring. Before they reached the end of the street, we all had one picked out that we had our eyes on. The cutest one there was this boy on the Italian team with this long dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. He was so good looking. He looked like Pippin off of Lord of the Rings, not even kidding. Anyways, he saw that I was staring at him, so he kept looking back at me and smiling at me. I was on cloud nine. During the presentations of the teams, I was begging the girls to go up there with me to take a picture with them. Before I knew it, Michelle was pushing me out of the croud into the team and asking them if I could get a picture. I was so embarrassed and turned bright red. He came right up to me before his team did and we all got a picture with them. I was so happy but embarrassed. But of course, I had to make this a memorable moment, so I took pictures with all of the teams as well. I hope my friend posts these pictures on facebook. We stayed a little bit longer and then as we are leaving, his team stayed behind and he was watching me. I walked past pretending like I didn't see him and he watched me leave and said goodbye. So...... let me just finish this story by saying, the hottest guy from the Italian Polo team was checking me out. The end. Goodnight. Hallelujah. I seriously, could be famous. They told us to come to their games.

Anyways, besides that, it was more sightseeing and school. The pictures I added are not of Siena, but are from a part of a different town we visited today. It is Voltera. For all those Twilight fans, that is the place that New Moon was filmed at, and where Stephanie Meyer based the story line on.

IM BACK!!!

I finally have some internet!! I have been in the beautiful city of Sienna for the past 3 days and I love it here. It is a smaller town and everything is exactly what you would see in pictures. I am going to have to take some pictures today of what it looks like, you would love it. I attend school at a little college called Dante Alleghari and I am studying Italian 101, Humanities 201, 280 and Siena Church History. My days are all pretty much the same and it feels good to be here.

On Sunday we were paired up with our roommates and we got to meet our host families. I was paired up with a girl named Brittany Carpenter and she is really nice. We get a long great and we pretty much have the same ideas on everything. We got pretty lucky. When we got off the bus into the city, everyone's host parents were there to great them. After a while, it was only Brittany, me and a couple of girls left. Because I live so far out of the city, they sent us in a Taxi and sent us off to find her place. Her apartment is on a street called Via Columbini and it looks like a little town of old people. I have not met anyone there who is not 60 years and older. Everyone loves us and is really nice. ( I got told by an old man today that i looked like Miss Italia. I was so happy). Our host mother is around 80 years old, widowed and loves to cook. Her name is Pierina and she talks really fast. She knows that I love sweets so she bakes us pie or cake every day along with nutela and chocolate for breakfast. It's only been 3 days and I have gained 8 pounds haha. I think she likes to see us eat her food. She is a great cook and I feel safe in her place.

Today my class doesnt start until 3 so I slept in and then walked around to the markets. Every wednesday there is a huge market that takes up the whole city. Everything is really cheap and it is really hard to not buy anything.... I also have to write a talk tonight for Sunday. I was asked by my Italian Bishop to prepare a talk on the sabbath day. I don't speak any Italian and the members dont speak any English, so I am pretty nervous. I guess if I mess up, no one will know what I am saying anyways.

Well, I will continue to update again! Arriderchi!

Italian men......bueno

I slept in...again. We had a reservation to go visit an art museum this morning at 7:15, and the girls and I in my apartment never woke up to go.... Our professor came into our apartment and told us just to meet us there and gave us these directions, " Just take one of the buses, get off the metro at Flaminio and then walk a little bit and you will find it." Well, we followed her directions and it took us to the bottom of the city. By the time we found the RIGHT bus, we were already an hour late and we knew they were in the museum already. So we decided, what better way to spend the day then go to the park, shop and buy gelato? So thats exactly what we did. We got some deserts for breakfast, took pictures and then walked around Piazza de Poppolo. Which by the way is one of my favorite places in the world. It's just a plaza FULL of shopping, the Trevi fountain, the spanish steps and music. It's just a busy place that is what Rome is all about. As we were cruising around the city, we randomly found the art museum we were supposed to go to, so we got off the bus and walked through the park to get there. It was beautiful. They had people playing guitars randomly on the park benches and there were ducks and birds every where to feed. It was just so pretty and we took a ton of pictures.

On our way out, I was in desperate need of icecream, so we stopped at this little shop and I started talking to the owner. ( another one of my "older Italian men crushes" ) He started flirting with all of us girls and giving us icecream for free. We started talking to him for a while and he was explaining to us that he was a movie producer and a doctor and an actor..... and all this stuff that just didnt make sense. And then he pulled out his phone and stared showing us pictures of him and Nicole Kidman, and a bunch of other actors it was crazy. We seriously spent an hour talking to him and by the end of it, we all had a crush on him. We told him all about us being mormons, how we don't drink and how we don't wear "sexy dresses". It was so funny. He was telling us that all of that is just part of Rome, and that no one thinks differently. It was funny to try to explain to him what we thought. Anyways, the girls invited him to take them out to dinner tonight, and I am pretty sure I will not be going. He's pretty attractive, but I don't have money and I don't want to get stuck in a random spot in Rome again.

Anyways, I also walked around the city today by myself and tried to find myself an Italian boyfriend.. I went in all the shops, and finally found someone good looking in a Cafe right across the street. It was love at first sight until I said a word wrong and then he had a lady come over because my Italian is horrible. Man, my luck is just not working out. Oh well, it just wasnt ment to be.